[badmadrad]

The US was fighting a proxy war with the soviet union. We had no interest in defeating the vietcong as much as stopping the spread of communism. Ho Chi Minh was a KGB agent and the communist revolution was largely born of soviet agitprop. So there is another layer to this conflict. Even though vietnam "won" they really were just puppets in a shadow war and it came at a huge cost for them. Much less than US.

[dundarious]

My understanding is that Ho Chi Minh was agitating for French socialists to join Lenin's 3rd International in the 1910s. I don't think he was a Soviet "agent" in any way, and had his own beliefs, aligning with Bolsheviks, certainly. However, you can definitely argue Vietnam was a client state of USSR.

[badmadrad]

Ho Chi Minh was trained at Lenin's "Comintern" with the expressive goal of training foreign assets to spread Soviet communist interests. These assets would be funded and supplied by the soviets to agitate revolution in their countries. This essentially is an agent.

[dundarious]

OK, I see what you mean by agent now. I had assumed you meant "receiving and following orders", but receiving training (including ideological) seems more in line with your meaning.

I do think almost every leader in South and Central America in the latter 20th Century could be called a "CIA agent" by that definition though. Not something I'd say.